Samantha Walker Creative Team July Blog Hop

Welcome to Samantha Walker Creative Team Blog Hop! 

This month's theme is Family Fun! You should have arrived here from Aimee's blog.This month's giveaway is All Boy Stamp Set

As mom to a little boy I adore this stamp set. I think I could use it on almost every page. All you need to do to win this stamp set is to enter below. You can earn multiple entries by following us on Facebook, commenting below, tweeting about the giveaway, and signing up for the email updates.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

For my project I decided to use the free cut file that you can get by signing to Samantha's newsletter through the Rafflecopter. Here it is.

I loved the design of star and stripes and thought it could work great as a stencil. That's how the shape looks like when you open it in Silhouette Studio software.

I ungrouped the shape, deleted the rectangular shape on the bottom, selected the flag, released the compound path and deleted  two other rectangles.

I grouped together what was left from the shape and made it a little smaller.

Lastly, I used "Fill Page" function to duplicate the shape all over the page. 

I didn't plan on using the stencil more than once so I cut it from a piece of cardstock from my giveaway box.

I mixed some color with sparking texture medium. The red is acrylic paint and the blue is Faber-Castell gelato.

Time to get my fingers dirty. Fun!

Ta-da! Custom background!

The texture medium gives a nice dimensional effect and it sparkles!

I really didn't need to add much to my page except three bright pictures. Just the title and two simple journaling cards.

Thanks so much for stopping by!  I hope you were inspired to try these or any other beautiful cut files from Samantha Walker Silhouette Store.

Click on the image below to head over to Claudia Harvey!

Click on the photo below to go to your next stop!

Road trip to New Jersey - part 2

On our second day in New Jersey we visited Ella's new middle school and learned that they start foreign languages in 6th grade and not in 7th like our school district. They offer Spanish, French and Chinese. Ella immediately said that she wants to learn Chinese. After the school visit we had lunch at Panera and drove to the Journal Square train station where we took PATH train to New York City. Lila really wanted to visit the Strand book store. I didn't read the map correctly and we took the train to the World Trade Center that is in lower Manhattan. After we checked the map again we realized that we have a long walk to the store. We could probably take a cab but decided to walk instead. We made few stops on the way - Starbucks (of course), street vendor that was selling peeled mangoes and Converse store.

I visited New York city several times before but never in summer so I was very surprised to see the mango vendors at each corner. The mango was delicious!

Here it is - the Strand Books flag. Almost there!

The girls disappeared between the shelves and I found the kids corner and rested there with Eli. We even heard a story from a former New York Public Library librarian.

At the store I realized that there is a closer train station, only few blocks away. On the the way back to the train station we bought more mango. 

In Jersey City we met with Ofir and decided to have dinner in the neighborhood. Google Local brought us to a small Italian restaurant 3 Guys from Italy. It looks like they mainly sell carry-out pizza but they had few tables in the back and simple menu. Our food was excellent!

The next morning Lila had a meeting with a boy from BBYO at local Dunkin' Donuts. While she talked we enjoyed latte (me and Ofir), ice cream (Ella and Eli) and some donuts (Ofir, Ella and Eli) I don't think I ever been to Dunkin' Donuts before so I had to take a picture of my coffee. After that Lila went to BBYO pool party and we waited for her at the biggest Barnes and Noble I ever saw. It had a huge used books section with rare editions, signed copies and all that great stuff. I know it is going to be one of our favorite places.

Soon it was time to leave and head back home to Wisconsin. After few hours of driving we made a stop at a rest stop to stretch our legs and to eat something.

Yumm, milky! Now we will not have to drive 2 hours to Chicago to buy it :)

A view from the back seat (one of the dozen pictures I found on the phone)

We slept at Barkeyville, PA and the next morning headed to Providence Metropark, OH,  where we took a mule-drawn canal boat through real functioning 19th century lock. We visited the General Store and the Mill and than watched the boat going through the lock again, this time from the shore.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ella was fascinated by the lady-blacksmith.She could stay there forever.

It was a hot day so an ice cream was in order.

The ice cream helped but not that much. We were happy to return to the car and turn on the A/C. 

We stopped for hearty dinner and decided to go straight home after that.

I was passing by Six Flags Great America at Gurnee when the fireworks at the park went off, making the perfect ending to our road trip.

Red White and Blue

It is July 1st (it was July 1st when I started to write this post but it is July 2nd now and not for too long) and that means new challenge at Scrap It Girl.  This month we challenge you to create with red, white and blue.  This challenge was the perfect excuse for me to scrap these cute pictures from last year - Lila and her BFF looking fabulous in red, white and blue before the parade.

Supplies: patterned paper, stickers, pens (WRMK), raindots (Cloud 9), stickles (Ranger), letter stickers (Colorbok)

I used an old WRMK "Yankee Doodles" collection from last year. I love this cool doodling page! I couldn't resist and colored some of the doodles with sparkling red and silver pens. I also added few acrylic dots and blue and silver stickles.

I cut out the rainbow from matching journaling card and layered it on top of the rainbow in the patterned paper. The cut out rainbow is just a little smaller but it gives it a nice dimensional effect. 

Check the awesome projects that other DT members did for this challenge and share your red, white and blue projects with us. Can't wait to see them!

Follow me on Bloglovin'

As many of you know, Google Reader is will be gone from the 1st of July and as from that date, you will lose the list of blogs you follow. I moved to Bloglovin’ and love it. 
You can easily transfer the list of all the blogs you already follow so you don’t miss out. Here is how to import all the blogs you follow from Google Reader to Bloglovin’ …
Don’t forget to follow Basement Chronicles :)

Choir retreat

A quick layout I made today based on Bo Bunny sketch. I had few sheets of old AdLib collection and added the music note sheet from Love Letters. I can't decided what I think about it. It turned so ... not me. But that's ok. I am going to embrace it and add it happily to Lila's album. (That part will have to wait till we move and unpack since the scrapbooks are packed already)

Supplies: patterned paper, stickers (Bo Bunny), cardstock (Bazzill), thickers (American Crafts), border punch (Fiskars), circle and speech bubble squeeze punches (Fiskars)

 

 

Road trip to New Jersey - part 1

Last Monday, June 17th, I packed my kids into the minivan, loaded it with snacks and set the GPS to Fair Lawn, NJ.

If you ask "Why New Jersey?" you probably don't know yet that after 10 years in Wisconsin we are moving to New Jersey. Ofir is already there, working at his new job but we stayed in Wisconsin to finish the school year, pack the house and get ready for the move. Our school year ended earlier than the school year on New Jersey so we decided to take a road trip, visit the schools and take a look at the area.  

First stop at Lake Forest Oasis in Chicago. Time for ice cream.

Hmm, I probably didn't take enough snacks...

No problem. We will stop and the next rest stop for more ice cream.
 We spent the whole day on the road and late at night arrived to our hotel in Pennsylvania.

The next morning we decided to take a detour and visit the Kinzua Bridge State Park. The views of the bridge are stunning.

Here is what was left from the bridge support after it was destroyed by tornado in 2003.

We had fun at the observation deck.

Ella had to check if the restored segment of the rail tracks will hold her.
The same evening we arrived to Fair Lawn and picked up Ofir from our friends house.

The next morning we had a meeting at the high school and after that we had lunch in Hoboken. After the lunch we dropped of Ofir at his office and went to visit the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City. the highlight of the center is the observation deck with gorgeous view of New York.

We spent some time looking at the tall buildings,

 catching balls with upside-down glasses on and

making handprints.

We had some free time before dinner so per my request we found Starbucks and everyone happily reunited with their electronic devices.

We had great dinner with our friends at sushi restaurant at Ridgewood. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures inside the restaurant.

Stay tuned for part 2.

P.S. A short blog maintenance announcement. As all you know and probably saw on endless other blogs, Google Reader is going away. After trying few things I decided to use Bloglovin. I especially like it's app on my Android. So if you followed me through Google Reader or Google Friends you can continue following by clicking on the Bloglovin icon on my left side bar. Hope to see some old and new names :)